Federico Buccellati, Nicoló Dell'Unto, Maurizio Forte

     This paper presents the application of new technologies in the study of archaeological remains (mostly structures).
     After an introduction about Urkesh (section 1) and its geography and history (section 2), stressing the importance of the Royal Palace [see The Royal Palace] and the related glyptic material [see Seals and seal impressions] for the recognition of the Hurrian identity of Urkesh's inhabitants, the author describes the conservation strategy applied for the preservation of the Royal Palace (section 3) [see Preservation].
     Section 4 displays the objects from the Royal Palace, offering a standard analysis of the material (for example, the description of a clay tablet found in a room of the building [room 3]), trying to connect the artefacts with their archaeological context. Sub-section 4.1 presents the urban landscape of Urkesh, introducing some data from recent geophysical surveys and GPS micro-reliefs.
     Section 5 describes the 'Browser edition' of Urkesh data [see Record and Buccellati 2006], explaining the usefulness of such a publishing approach.
     Section 6 defines the benefits of using digital technologies (mostly 3D renderings and reconstructions), allowing to (re)create a 'virtual heritage', outlined as “the digital information derived by perception, interpretation, learning, knowledge, communication of a cultural item; [...] the virtual heritage [considered as] an ontology of the cultural heritage” (p. 175); the section further investigates the modern technologies usually applied in archaeology.
     Section 7 relates with 'Remote Sensing Applications', offering “the reconstruction of a spatial virtual reality system dedicated to the investigation of the ancient Urkesh” (p. 176) [Figs. 6-8 displays respectively a Corona imagery, a Landsat 7 ETM 8 bands imagery and a SPOT Panchromatic imagery of Urkesh].
     Section 8 describes the use of LandStar-DGPS, “a satellite delivered GPS correction service providing 24 hour accurate and reliable real time precise positioning on land” (p. 178).
     Section 9 discusses the virtual reconstruction of the archaeological landscape within a diachronic interpretation of the territory.
     Section 10 reports photo modelling techniques used at Urkesh, while section 11 give an account of the digital processing system.
     Section 12 relies with two case studies (the Royal Palace and a Hurrian tablet), testing the potentiality of the aforementioned techniques on both a macro and micro scale context.
     The conclusions (section 13) summarize the possible development of this system and its remarkable features: 1) the portability of the system; 2) a desktop virtual reality; 3) the development of a timeline of the site; 4) 3D renderings of both structures and finds (and the creation of a 3D archaeological, spatial georeferenced, environment; 5) a cultural and methodological contextualization; 6) simulations of an artificial ancient environment; 7) the multimedia and upgradeability of the system; 8) a friendly interface for scientific communication and edutainment; 9) fast time in data dissemination; 10) the accessibility of heterogeneous data in the same environment.

[M. De Pietri – November 2019]